Surge protected breakers

Any ideas where to find a single pole 20 amp spike suppressing breaker for a Square D panel? I've been to local hardware stores,as well as,Home Depot and no luck so far. They only have ground fault equipped ones......HELP!

Surge protected breakers

I would install a whole house surge protector at the panel. Sounds like overkill, but for about $125 you never have to worry about spikes, lightning, etc. Electrical supply houses will carry them. "Leviton" is common in my area.

Surge protected breakers

Surge protected breakers

Okay, I must disagree....

A whole house surge, while a good thing, will NOT do what you need.

Why?

A power surge (think nearby lightning strike) can, and will, enter your AV equipment via the cable line or telephone line (if connected to a phone line) even if you have a whole house surge unit. That "whole house surge" won't stop a power surge from entering in that manner.

Instead, get yourself a good Panamax line conditioner/surge protector that allows for those lines to be routed through it. Something such as the Panamax M4300-EX at the low end, or if you have a DVR and/or a DLP/LCD TV, the Panamax Max-1500 UPS.

Surge protected breakers

If lightning hits your house, there is NOTHING you can do to protect your equipment. Just use a high quality surge suppressor and unplug the equipment during periods of lightning and thunder storms.
Nothing can stop a direct lightning strike.

This lightning strike was so powerful that it actually blew a few switches and receptacles completely out of the wall. Exited the structure via the TV antenna that was suspended from the roof rafters. Blowing the antenna to pieces, as well as blowing a decent size hole in the roof.

Entire Home Theater System was found to be in perfect working order after the electrical wiring was repaired, and the surge proterctor was replaced.

Surge protected breakers

ktkelly,
I would say that this was just luck. However, your explanation does lead me to believe that it MAY be possible to protect ones equipment. But as far as a direct lightning strike all bets are off.
A direct strike does not have to enter and destroy from the wiring. Everthing in the house is in jeopardy.
So the system you mention in your post is rated to withstand the ensuing fire too?
This is just my opinion.

Surge protected breakers

The first time I ever saw where lightning had run through a house it was somewhat unusual.

Riverfront house in Ohio sat dead center on the lot, big tall oak trees on all four corners of the lot. Party lights were strung from the trees to the wrap around porch corners.

Lightning hit one of the oak trees, ran through the party light wiring, blowing out all the bulbs (like flashbulbs going off), before entering the structure.

The lightning then followed the wiring around the porch to the other side before exiting down the party light wiring on the other side, and again blowing out bulbs as it headed to the oak tree on the far corner.

At the same time, the lightning burned a trail up (literally blistered the paint)the side of the house, across the ceiling of the second floor rooms, before joining the other trail exiting the structure.

The tree that took the initial hit has a bright yellow stripe from top to bottom. There was a bright yellow line burned in the lawn, following the path of the party lights, and this bright yellow path trailed through the crawl space UNDER the house as well.

The oak tree where the lightning exited had a bright yellow line from bottom to what was left of the top (it was blown apart).

Everything electrical in the house was blown. All the light switches and receptacles were physically blown out of the walls. Everything electrical was done in.

No fire... And the people that were in the house were fine, other than being scared to death..